Gruadh begins and ends the novel with meditations on history and memory. She knows that Macbeth will not be remembered in the annals of history because his reign was largely peaceful and uneventful, and what is often remembered in the history books is war, scandal, or children—none of which Macbeth and Gruadh produced.

In the book’s opening Gruadh worries that Malcolm mac Duncan will ruin Macbeth’s legacy, slandering him because they were political enemies and because Macbeth killed his father, but here she clarifies that even were Macbeth’s history to remain untouched, historians would have little to say.

In his…